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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Sen. Mitt Romney doesn't seem to be taking seriously talk that he should be president of Harvard.
In his first public comment about the suggestion he take over at his alma mater amid growing concern over hate speech at elite universities, Romney said he was flattered, according to a post Tuesday on social media platform X by Igor Bobic, Huffington Post senior politics reporter.
But the Republican not seeking reelection this year also made light of the impact he could have stepping into the job vacated in January by Claudine Gay, who resigned in January following a congressional hearing where she answered a question about whether "calling for the genocide of Jews violate(s) Harvard's rules of bullying and harassment" by saying, "It can be, depending on the context." Gay also faced allegations of plagiarism.
"One way of ending the demonstrations on Gaza would be to name me president of Harvard because then the demonstrations would all be about getting rid of President Romney. There would be mayhem," Bobic quoted Romney as saying.
The idea of a President Romney at Harvard surfaced last week, in a Washington Post op-ed written by the president of the American Jewish Congress, Daniel Rosen. Rosen, a Democrat and a Harvard graduate, wrote the university "remains in an almighty mess" and said Romney has "the moral courage and independence" to confront antisemitism on campus.
Another Democratic Harvard alumnus has joined the call: Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman.
Fetterman posted on X Monday that "after this mad season of antisemitism at Columbia," he agreed with Rosen that Romney was the right choice. "This former Governor of Massachusetts doesn't need a paycheck, but Harvard and its academic peers needs to recalibrate from far-left orthodoxy."
The 77-year-old Romney, who holds an MBA and a law degree from Harvard, has not said specifically what he plans to do after his Senate term ends, although he told reporters last fall he's "too much a person of action to want to be relaxing for the rest of my life" and intends to stay involved in politics.
There could also be a role for Romney in the 2034 Winter Games in Utah. But the former leader of the state's first Olympics in 2002 has said running another Winter Games should be left up to the "next generation."
